A day in the life of LIFE

For all those who are thinking twice on reading this post, let me assure you that I shall not spoil the fun of the movie - this is a review which gives you a good enough flavor without revealing the ending.

A lazy Sunday morning and nothing much to do, brought four friends from IIM face to face with Ashutosh Gowariker's latest flick in town...

The movie opens up well, with Harmaan playing Yogesss Patel, the "cool dude MBA from GSB Chicago who is leading a comfortable life in apna amreeka even as he doubles up as a DJ at night.."

Then of course is his family that is as ubiquitous as yours and mine - Mummy, Daddy, Bhaiyya Bhabhi Kaaka Kaaki and the extra - Kaakaji ki woh!

Summoned to India to solve a problem for which wedding is the incredulous recourse to, he sets out on an expedition as simple as that undertaken by the Archealogical Survey of India - to find a gal to be wedded to, with everything else including the date of the marriage having already been fixed!

Now this actually reminded me of the movie "Jhoot Bole Kawwa Kaate.." which has a song that goes like - "Hero Hai, Heroine Hai, Villain Hai, Shooting hai..par camera nahin!"

Yogessss' quest makes him intelligently choose a sample set from the population presented to him by his kaaku. This I guess is a fallout of the QT course (Quantitative Techniques) that he had during his MBA at Chicago. (For those of you MBA students reading this - life mein padhai kabhi kabhi kaam aajati hai...)

So he decides to meet one gal from each rashee(sunsign) already handpicked from the Gujrati community by his kaaku and take a call post the self styled "swayam vadhu" ceremony of sorts.

Priyanka Chopra has matured over the years as an actress and she has pulled off a blinder playing 12 roles in the movie. In fact when Gowariker was asked by Rajiv Masand on why he had the same gal play 12 roles, the reply was that, it was so done to neutralise the bias in the minds of the audience, which would have arisen otherwise.

Each innings played by Priyanka is a cameo and credit must be given to the director who has researched extensively on the traits of the sunsigns and mapped the characters well to suit the "stereotypes".

Apparently Ashutosh wanted A R Rahman to score the music for the film but 12 songs in a short span was not possible owing to projects that were already running for the music maestro. His substitute ,Sohail Sen has done a fine job in putting together situation based numbers (12 in all + the title track) for the film. Javed Saab as always, has been great at the lyrics. Special mention of Madhav Kadam and Rajesh Patil, who are Priyanka's make up artistes.

One negative - As with all Gowariker movies, the length of the movie is a little over 4 hours and the theater I watched it at, managed to wrap it up in 3 hours 20 minutes (by chopping a few songs), which I guess was wise, in a way - Consider a song tsunami with the elaborate setting for every raashee!!

The supporting characters play a great role with specific mention of Anjjan Srivastav (better known for his role in the television series Waagle ki Duniyan) who plays Patel Senior.The movie also provides a social message, and a good one at that, which completes the circle in a way.

Some good jokes thrown in, that go well with the situational comedy, make the movie a funtertainer. I especially like one dialogue in the movie where two Gujratis are speaking in broken Angrezi, and one of them remarks "Iph you bhant thu dhoo bijneeejjj, then ispeak in goojraati..."

The style of direction towards the end resembles that of Priyadarshan where all actors congregate at a given location, but all in all, the compartments do sum up to the larger objective of the movie.

Based on the Gujrati novel Kimball Ravenswood by Madhu Rye, the movie is a great entertainer with a good mix of humor, music, and an innovative story line. A 7.5 on 10 for "What's your Rashee" and you won't be disappointed at the end of the it.

And while you figure out what's Harmaan's favourite raashee at the theater near you, let me go grab a copy of Linda Goodman's "Sun Signs!"... On second thoughts, I'd rather find it interesting to discover the raashee based traits of the opposite gender myself, through personal interactions.... :-)

Lights.Grandeur.Conclave.

Three words that best describe a grand conference.

Well, I was at one such conference recently and found it no less than the "Great Indian Wedding" as far as the attendees' profiling was concerned.

There are clear categories that you could segment the folks into:

1. The stiff upper lip - Yo mate!

This category of people will not speak to you unless and until its absolutely essential. They shall maintain aristocracy that goes best with swigs of aristocrat during cocktails. They have myriad ties that have interesting color combos on them. Their sole purpose of attending such events - to make their presence felt. Their hypothetical favorite Dialogue - "Rishtey main toh hum tumhare baap lagte hai; naam hai....Shehenshah"

2. Oji Welcome.. Oye... biradari hai ji

This set of people is straight out of a Yash Raj Production. Those that move around like the actors on the sets of Hum Aapke hai Kaun and believe that "gusto is the way to go" as far as socializing is concerned. They are known to surreptitiously slip their visiting cards (Eg. Mr. Balwinder Khosla, Sole Proprietor) into your palm while you are engrossed in their extrovert display of emotion. Their hypothetical favorite Dialogue - "Koi Gal nahin ji...apni gaddi toh goodwill naal chaldi hai"


3. The Happydent poster folks

Those that believe that 1000 watt smile is a key ice breaker and a substitute for a firm handshake, fall into this category. The elasticity of the smile is directly proportional to the reciprocation shown by others in the conversation. These are generally the introverts who believe in brevity of words. Their hypothetical favorite Dialogue : "....rukawat ke liye khed hai.."

4. The "Lost in Translation" folks

They sat. They snacked. They slept.

This set is comprised mostly of senior citizens (who were forced into attending the conference while they would have preferred a beer with old buddies at the local club)who take a quick snooze not just between speaker sessions and also through them. While the image the props up immediately is that of the quintessential "Shri Deve Gowda" pondering about the future of India in the Parliament.

The veterans can be excused actually. They intend no harm. They come over, listen for a few minutes, wake up during the Q&A, chuckle at the questions being posed, sip tea and snooze again...

Their hypothetical favorite Dialogue: "So gaya, yeh jahan...."

5. Young Gun Murugan

And then there are attention seeking blokes who keep jumping around like "bulls let lose in a china shop" - who sometimes are good but most often draw slack from the members of the fellow categories for being brash and upstart. They are like Yuvraj Singh of A T20 international who add some life into an otherwise boring test match...

Their hypothetical favorite Dialogue: "Idly Appam Sambhar khao Quick Gun Murugan ke Gun Gao....Mind It!"

Well, this was a brief snapshot of the audience - but I must confess, the entire experience for me was an enriching one indeed..and until next time, bring on the dessert folks... -:)!

Indians have always been habituated to live the frugal way of life. Right from the learned "rishis" to "rahul baba", the world has turned a full circle.

"Kya aap gareebon se bhi gareeb hai?" - This is the question being asked to Netas on the latest "tamasha" er.. reality show "Sach Kaa Saamna".

The latest prime time discussion at Iftar parties and Navratri pandals has been that of how "simple" our netas are.

And while the one-up-man-ship continues, every politician wants to project his contribution to the noble cause. While five star hotel stay is prohibited in the interest of the party image, train travel is the mantra for Rahul Baba even if it costs the state exchequer 100 times more in providing SPG cover for the same.

While Mr. Tharoor's tweets are being dissected like that of a cockroach in a zoology lab, by people who don't understand as much English to comprehend a joke / witty comment, someone must tell the Congress Party that there is no use being penny wise and pound foolish as far as the austerity drive is concerned.

Before someone brands me as an insensitive capitalist, let me clarify that there is a lot that can happen between the sip and the lip and this game of exhibitionism, of scoring brownie points, will get us nowhere (except to the vote bank of course)

I mean, there are zillion wasteful expenditures to be cut down on(which includes maintaining the honorable members of Parliament and their lavish lifestyles on "sarkaari kharcha" and ought to warrant more attention than that of self censure of a people friendly politician whose head is being asked for, even as I type this).

The Government's austerity directive has left a few like Mr. Deve Gowda disappointed since he wanted to be seen as one who proactively supports the cause.
Maybe the next time around, Mr. Gowda can use the video conferencing software to express his opinion rather than take the next flight to Delhi (even if it's only "cattle" class)

The star hotels have suddenly found their revenues dropping owing to the crackdown on flamboyant netas.

It will be interesting to see where all this positions Mr. Mallya who would find himself stuck between conflicting priorities of austerity politics and brand image of the self. A suggestion would be to introduce khadi garments for all the hostesses and crew aboard Kingfisher to make a symbolic statement. < bad suggestion!>

Rumors are ripe that reservations on the inter state buses have risen 1000 fold owing to the chartering of low cost airlines and trains by netas and their entourage. Interestingly, India is a nation where resources are always a constraint and even if there's abundance of the same - the demand will always outstrip supply, with the philosophy being "Swalpa Adjust Maadi..."

Though I may not agree completely with the Mahatma's ideals, I am truly glad that Baapu is back in fashion again... The epitome of austerity is atleast being remembered for a brief period in time by a majority who do not. But the reasons are different. Mahatma Gandhi did it for a purpose with greater good in mind, while the same cannot be said about the present day politicians.

On that note, while news channels are thriving on the hot topic, the question that the aam aadmi such as you and me need to be asking is,

"Mirror Mirror on the wall, who's the most austere of them all?"

P.S. - A beautifully written piece by Bachi Kakaria on the same topic is here .

Term 4 has ended. Term 5 has begun with a pit stop of just 48 hours. Such is life @ IIM. But the fun continues. There's lots to be done. And lots of exciting stuff at that.

We are reminded that placements are 3 months away by Professors who now look at us as near finished products from the brand factory of IIM.

The electives are interesting as usual, even as we jostle between picking those that equally inspire us but cant be taken since there is a credit limit that we cannot exceed.

The economy is looking up. And this is good news for us, for everyone in fact. The downturn that had taken the fizz out of bubblee last year seems to be atleast replaced by the freshness of lemonade this time around.

But then, with all the gyan that an MBA program imparts you with, this is a time where we all reflect where we all want to head in life.

It's all about the gratification that one perceives in his/her choice that matters. And if seven figure packages come along as part of some of these choices, it might be incidental.

The flexibility that a 66.67% MBA gets in order to choose his bowling lane of nine pins is probably the most cherished part of the program. And in being allowed to choose comes a great feeling of empowerment, to contribute, to make a difference.

Sometimes people complain that they have limited choices. And they sometimes complain that they have too many choices to choose from. I prefer the problem of plenty than that of paucity.

Thus, this pit stop is all about trying to make the best choice with limited visibility into the future. And in the process to have fun and make the most of life in the present....

Gentlemen,start your engines....